


to smoke the days away into the evenings

by Aboutnothingness (Thesherlockholmes)



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Gen, Gift Fic, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Internal Monologue, Introspection, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thesherlockholmes/pseuds/Aboutnothingness
Summary: An end, a chorus from the traffic floors below. You’ve ruined yourself—a known fact. How, though, does this negate any sweetness? Any need or want for care?Tours are whirlwinds, life slips away into false fun. What is truth and where is love?
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14





	to smoke the days away into the evenings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BisexualRoger (HyperPluviophile)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperPluviophile/gifts).



> Unsurprisingly, I have Thoughts about 1979. This is a small examination. 
> 
> A long overdue gift for the miraculous BisexualRoger. My dear, consider it a horrendously late birthday gift or a slightly early Christmas one – express shipped! You’ve made this year and this fandom so incredibly wonderful, I can’t thank you enough. ❤️
> 
> Many thanks to Nastally for beta-reading!

_All the city streets a wondrous chorus  
Singing all these poses now no longer boyish  
Made me a man, but who cares what that is and you said watch my head about it  
Baby you said watch my head about it._  
– [_Poses_ , Rufus Wainwright](https://youtu.be/T4ChJ0_wGxY)

***

1979

A continuous whirlwind. Days – no, _nights_ – passing in seconds, dawn creeping over the horizon just as he comes up for air, and then right back down. It’s wonderful, make no mistake. It is spring, after all, and flowers are littering his flat. Thrown in vases on every surface, light streaming in through large windows, all the furniture he so carefully picked out, and –

He’s not there to see it.

That is an old memory now, lost in the haze of being ‘on the road’. Of being swept up in life, as he now knows it. A leather jacket over his shoulders, always now, for years. Sunglasses when hungover, cigarettes chain-lit in the studio; Roger eyeing him warily, worriedly. Brian shouting, storming out, over and over. John, quiet. John playing some innocuous bassline, as if to orchestrate his disaster, his downfall, his days and nights; as if the man knows the truth more than anyone, note by note, mocking.

Snide words, quick and cutting, “Watch out”. _What about, darling?_

“I can take care of myself.”

It’s the truth, for the most part. Legends always have their helpers, their ‘woman behind the man’, though for him it is ‘men behind the man’ – in every respect!

 _Watch_ , an oddly recurring word. Watch the head; watch me; watch them, us, you; watch watch watch – oh damn what’s the time? I was supposed to be in the studio half an hour ago. Supposed to be at the sound check an hour ago – Brian will be fuming again, John gone down by three whiskeys, Roger… Roger getting on with it, no matter.

A shave, a wash, a comb through his unruly hair – shorter now, but still quite long, still tickling the back of his neck. The room is empty as he dresses. The car awaits, probably. A crushing ache in his heart when he glimpses himself in the mirror. He throws concealer and eyeliner in his pockets, he’ll look awful if he doesn’t make himself up. There are bruises on his wrists, under his eyes so dark they could match. Better take some of the fun stuff for that, then.

Right – to the masses, to the job, to the (what used to be, what dwindlingly is remembered to be _truly_ ) joy!

His eyes have become hard. It’s bravado covering up for everything he’s lacking. Lacking himself, because who _is_ he? Fame does funny things to you, if you think of it too long. If you think, what’s got me here? Because, my dear, it is never _you._ Not in the sense of your soul getting you to the top! People couldn’t care less about that, obviously. Nor your heart. So, what then? It’s a question that plagues him and one he covers up with vodka and nights on the town. Because the answer that comes to him is: dreadfully, it’s not down to him. It can’t be.

If it were, that would mean the world loves him. But… the world can’t love him if no one who knows him, who intimately knows him, loves him. It would be, Brian would say, inconsistent, incontinuous: an equation that doesn’t add up.

Love? Oh never you mind it. It’s a fickle thing, more cracked up than what it really is: fighting, bruises, kisses, loneliness. Quickly then, it becomes a game. The prize is a companion for a night, two, maybe more, but not terribly long because that doesn’t ever seem to work out. It’s not the way of things; only _fun, fun, fun._

The question of: ‘why does something so wrong feel so good’, is long gone because it is easy to answer—everything wrong feels wonderful. The trickier question that no one dares to ask is: in the end, when everything is added up and accounted for, will what good you have done outweigh the bad?

It would weigh down like a sopping cotton blanket were it not for snowy drug drifts and copious drink, beloved Moët et Chandon, horrid American beer. It suits him, really—looking in the mirror now, hat perched atop carefully styled-to-look-careless hair—this look. He is _in_ and what more could he ask for?

A bit more, a bit better.

No, this is his lot.

Here doll, here’s the script! The music, can’t you read? Fumbling words, fumbling chords, Brian glaring. He is furious.

Fuck you, then, amp over—a cheering crowd, kaleidoscope of lights. Second number?

Second go? Up and down, don’t mind the fragility of man –

_That’s right, right –_

Another show tonight, not ready; throat raw, parched.

_Watch your head, teeth damn it –_

Spotlight, pose.

_Let me entertain you._

A million roses, soon wilting, sooner dead. Passed out to tens, night after night. Throw the beautiful things, why don’t you! Toss them out, toss them off.

The lights twist, hush surrounds. Breath by breath. Breath, singular again. Rose caught in your cap, noticed two days later. Come now, a world spiralling down.

An end, a chorus from the traffic floors below. You’ve ruined yourself—a known fact. How, though, does this negate any sweetness? Any need or want for care?

It does, somehow. Neither is better, past or present, but sweetness can glimmer in illusion, in false pretty memory. So too, can the days under night lights, laughing while bass thumps in his heart, life enlivening his blood. So too, can the present sparkle like firecrackers, bright and brilliant. Sudden and then gone.

And in the dazzling daffodil-clear morning, eyes and body heavy, it appears to be only the string of distractions it truly is. A game of life, love made a mockery. No one to hold him. He has grown up now. The hard truths of life that harden a boy into a man.

The morning scene:

A whisp of a body; used and worn out, a gold little limpet.

_Baby you said watch my head about it.  
Oh, no, no kidding._


End file.
